Archive for the ‘Habitat’ Category

Urban green space is an old idea that’s come full circle with a new twist.

The world has long appreciated the need for natural landscapes in its most populated places. Consider the vision of Olmstead when he designed Central Park for New Yorkers, the sense of scale that informed the planners of Luxemborg Gardens in Paris, or the Swedish balance of humanity and nature that is evident in every grove and pasture of the vast Djurgården in Stockholm.

However, something went awry as populations migrated from the planet’s rural areas to create the new megalopolises of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The practical need for housing and infrastructure overwhelmed urban planners in the developing nations. At the same time, economic forces and demographic shifts caused many cities in the more prosperous nations to let their parks and public places fall into blight. All the while, the human need for green space in the cities has grown more urgent than ever.

The places it describes may not be truly “wild” in the literal sense, but they can offer urbanites the essence of wilderness. As such, they are a basic requirement for quality of life and a fundamental element of vibrant city culture.

Genuine wild lands are hard to come by near metropolitan areas in North America. But there are exceptions. The Tully Trail in central Massachusetts is one of them.

Massachusetts is among the smallest states in the US. Yet, it has one of the highest ratios of protected lands, due largely to a conservation mindset rooted in collaborative yankee ethics and civic innovation. The recent creation of the Tully Trail provides a great case history of how it goes when everything clicks.

Not more than a 1.5 hour drive from Boston, this 22 mile gem loops the wild Tully River Valley in the state’s rural and largely undeveloped North Quabbin region. The trail offers a wilderness experience comparable to that found in the remote reaches of northern New England, replete with mountain vistas, cathedral-like forests, rushing streams, and thunderous waterfalls. It’s anchored on Tully Lake at one of the state’s most beautiful campgrounds.

For those unfamiliar with the relatively compact scale of the Bay State, the region lies North of the vast Quabbin Reservoir, which provides much of the water supply for the Boston area. You could say that the spirit of conservation runs thick in the rural towns and villages of those parts.

The idea for the trail first emerged in the the late 1990’s with a number of groups working individually to preserve land in the area. It was slow going at first…until they decided to work together and bring in state organizations, federal agencies and experienced conservation groups to develop a grand vision that caught the imagination of the state’s conservationists and recreation-minded public. The Tully Trail became the first project of the North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership in 1997, and welcomed its first trekkers in 2001.

Conserving natural landscapes is complex enough in this day and age, but it’s a world-class challenge when the land spans different townships, municipalities, and jurisdictions. That’s what makes the development of the Tully Trail instructive for like minded groups elsewhere.

This summary provides an overview of the Tully Trail project and the large cast of organizations that helped shepherd the vision to reality.